Wendy, you speak the truth Minneapolis leaders refuse to acknowledge.
Certainly, it is easy to say "the chicken has come home to roost," but, do these same people want Minneapolis to become the vast wasteland that many other inner cities have become? Sure, they'll feel safe out in the concrete-encrusted burbs for a while... but will they then come into town to attend shows or to work? Anyone besides me ever driven through Detroit?Been to Detroit, Philly, etc. I went through St. Louis and Memphis last week. That's where we're headed, the cycle is obvious. As jobs disappear, crime takes over inner city neighborhoods. The middle class is disappearing, and the working class is hi tailing it to the 'burbs. Given current trends, by 2020 Minneapolis will look like Memphis- a few islands of gentrification downtown and along the river gorge and lakes in a largely abandoned city. Who can blame the working class for leaving- when the city won't do anything to shut down the drug house on your block but hands you double digit rax increases?
NRP is all but gone. And while multi million dollar subsidies are given to big developers, the city still hasn't put in a curb cut for my driveway that has been here for decades.Minneapolis is a beautiful city because of NRP and similar programs.
This wave of Darwinian (survival of the fittest) fiscal policy sweeping the nation... and now "coming home to roost" in Minneapolis... scares me to death... it is so cold and uncaring about anyone but oneself. How far will it go? If we don't help the less fortunate to have even basic needs met... then, too, do we not care when they are forced to send their children to work in factories like in 17th & 18th century industrial days? Where is the line drawn? Do they really think that people who are desperate and resort to crime for income won't visit the burbs where there is more to steal?Yep, that's what Minneapolis will look like a couple decades hence. Except that we'll have crack houses instead of sweatshops.
I suspect our only chance for survival as a city may rest with the Republicans in power at the state and federal levels. In a perverse way, if they follow through on their agenda and repeal the Minnesota Human Rights Act and harass immigrants, Minneapolis may again be a sanctuary for folks fleeing bigotry. Minneapolis pioneering and sweeping Civil Rights Ordinance brought many GLBT and minority folks here who invested in and stabilized many neighborhoods.
Dyna Sluyter from Hawthorne
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